4th weekend

to the circus

 a few photos from our 4th of july weekend

checking out the pre-show

a 4th of july festival for oscar's 1st ferris wheel ride and some wimpy fireworks

4th of july bbq with grumpy alice



much better fireworks in state line



new year's party

i remembered to pull out the camera at the last minute and get some pictures of our new year's eve celebration. it's basically the same thing every year, but this year i made us some new star garlands and bought some balloons for fun.

the puzzle was only 750 pieces, so we almost got it finished by midnight! we were only 30 minutes late getting it done. usually we have 1000 pieces and stay up a whole lot later working on it (and then sometimes get up in the morning and finish it).

i just thought this picture of lane was amusing... doesn't he look thrilled?

tree fetching '10

i have been SUPER busy around here lately, but we did manage to get our tree up and decorated on schedule! jeremy and oscar put most of the ornaments up while i sat and unwrapped, but we got it done and it's the most beautiful christmas tree we've ever had (it always is). i almost brought my tripod along this year so we could get a better picture, but that sure did sound like a lot of work!

i noticed that we had all worn our converse (oscar calls his rockstar shoes), so we got a family foot photo, too!

happy unbirthday!

since we were going to be out of town for a week and hadn't had a game night in awhile, i decided to throw an unbirthday party or everyone using the party printables from draw!pilgrim. what a fun easy party! i changed the birthday sign into an unbirthday sign and used the place cards as food labels.

everyone got an unbirthday present (i had a $2 limit for each person) and a little baggy of goodies. we ate giant sub sandwiches, chips with homemade salsa and guac, mixed nuts and, of course, cake and ice cream! the printable bingo game was a big hit since we had a very wide range of ages. i also got a whole bunch of prizes ($1 toys, candles, candy bars, etc) for in the prize basket for winners. we all ended up with a few extra goodies.

thank you thank you to draw!pilgrim! and to howaboutorange for the link! what a fun, no fuss party!

a few easter pictures

this year we had a picnic at turkey fork for easter. the weather was PERFECT and it was hard to keep the boys out of the water (aaron actually fell in).

relaxing after lunch

oscar had so much fun with the egg hunt this year. he would get super excited and run and make all sorts of silly noises every time he spotted another egg. he ended up finding most of the prize eggs and we had to re-hide a couple for aaron to find!

egg dying

here is a very very late post about our egg dying! this year we tried dying eggs using silk ties from the thrift store (first set of eggs). it was pretty neat how it worked, but you didnt really get to do much with the eggs, so not sure if we'll repeat or not. oscar did a great job with his eggs this year (second set of eggs) - he didn't even break any!

hello 2010.

7:51 pm

the men hang out after filling up on party food.

7:55 pm

christmas presents!

8:05 pm

cleanup crew.

8:08 pm

testing out new toys.

8:48 pm

the boys get to work.

8:49 pm

so that we can get to work.

10:35 pm
rock'em sock'em robot tournament

tough competition

2:03 am

oscar is pooped and nana got a little nap while rocking him to sleep. back to work on that puzzle!

danielle and boys left at some point around 3 or 4, but i was too tired and focused on the puzzle for pictures.

4:51 am
amazed we finished the puzzle in one night!

a 1000 piece new years miracle

careful, nana. dont fall over!

happy new year everyone.

happy birthday, jeremy!

jeremy turned 26 last week....

and all he got was a punch in the face.. (well.. not really)

craving some paper garlands

i've been getting the apartment nice and festive for halloween. i needed some garlands and found this on paper crave (heh.. they just reposted it again today!). i changed it up a bit by adding some color and circles and using black ribbon to attach them. i love garlands!

train party

i thought i'd do a post with some train party things from oscar's first birthday

handmade invitations using construction paper - very budget friendly! the ticket said:

All Aboard to Celebrate Oscar's 1st Birthday

Jones Station

Track # ---address---

Train departs at 1:00pm on March 15th

RSVP to the Station Master

---phone number---

Oscar's birthday cake(s). the train engine was chocolate, the car was butter recipe and the caboose was strawberry. baked in bread pans an assembled into a train. ice cream cone for the smoke stack, oreos with m&m's for the wheels, oreos as coal. some sort of fruity twizzler type things for connectors and top edge of the car. cute little train candles from a party store.

food train. taped down brown packaging paper and drew on some train tracks. pimento & cheese sandwiches and cream cheese & jelly sandwiches as train cars. ritz bitz and pretzel sticks for wheels. broccoli and cauliflower as trees. celery and carrot sticks as logs. spinach dip, choo choo chex mix and train mints.

a close-up of the sandwich train

train banner made of cheap construction paper. covered the high chair with red bandannas and made a little sign/banner for on the tray with some train stamps cut from sponges. lots of red, orange and blue balloons.

some railroad crossing signs around the apartment with all the balloons

time capsule station. a place for people to write notes for putting in oscar's time capsule (to be opened when he turns 18). i stamped some paper for that as well.

jeremy put down some awesome electrical tape train tracks across the floor.

jeans, overalls, red bandannas and plaid were worn

wooden train whistles from trainparty.com were wrapped in red bandannas and tied up with jute twine. the whistles were perfect. i'm so glad we got an extra one for oscar to keep!

oscar checkin' out his whistle

and the birthday boy in his sugar coma after his first cake & ice cream feast.

4th of july

we had a fabulous 4th of july weekend. jeremy had friday off, so we woke up early and went to maynor creek to swim in the lake. (no sign of alligators this year, yay!) then we got a milkshake and did grocery shopping. the rest of the day was spent making goodies for the bbq (heath bar cake, cup cake cheesecakes and lemon bars) and playing a game of trivial pursuit (jeremy totally killed me). saturday we spent all day at aunt janie's and then went to see fireworks. sunday we relaxed.

a few pictures from our 4th of july bbq at aunt janie's house-

aunt janie bought a pool for the kids to play in. i sat in it with oscar and aaron for awhile. oscar loved it (cept when he'd fall under). i can't wait until he can take swimming lessons! aaron wasn't so sure about it and stayed glued to me for awhile.

oscar helping uncle jimmy ray cook

and telling winston he's a good dog

the men that did all the good grilling - uncle jimmy ray, jeremy and uncle nigel. aaron giving uncle jj lots of love.

aunt janie enjoyed the time with her nephews, jeremy and danielle laughing while they played family feud, oscar enjoying the pool, oscar and aaron running around (i just typed 'funning' on accident, but i suppose that works too.), and cousin sheldon gave oscar kool-aid and became his insta-buddy.

we spent all day at aunt janie's house and then had to rush to throw everything into the car to make it to the fireworks. we made it in time and the fireworks were great. oscar actually paid attention to them this year and loved them. i told him my favorite are the crackling ones and he said his favorite are the blue ones.